Typically, dermatological microneedling apparatuses indicate apparatuses that are used in an aesthetic transdermal procedure that involves repeatedly puncturing the skin with tiny, sterile needles (so-called “microneedling” the skin). In addition, many liquid injection apparatuses include those microneedling procedures performed for injecting a tattooing pigment or liquid/gel medicine, collagen or other items, into the skin or in an affected area of the skin for aesthetic purposes. Such microneedling apparatuses typically includes a needle cartridge having one or more needles therein, where the entire needle cartridge is disposable in order to prevent contamination from one patient to another. To accomplish this, such apparatuses provide for a detachable needle cartridge that include a needle unit and which mount to the front end of the microneedling apparatus during use.
However, although conventional microneedling apparatuses use disposable needle cartridges, blood and other liquids oozing out of the skin during use of the apparatus on a patient frequently flows into a (re-useable) main body of the microneedling apparatus along the disposable needle cartridge during a procedure. In early apparatuses, only a mechanical connection between a needle unit or cartridge and the main body existed, which could not block the small amount of the blood (or other liquids) flowing back into the apparatus body from the needle unit or cartridge, and therefore the blood or other contaminating liquids of the previously operated person remained in the main body after the liquid injection apparatus was used, even if the needle unit or cartridge were replaced before the next patient. This resulted in an unacceptable risk of contaminating the next patient with the blood or other liquids from the prior patient.
In newer conventional apparatuses, seals have been employed within the disposable needle cartridge in an attempt to either block contaminating fluids from flowing back into the main body of the device, or to capture such fluids flowing back through the needle cartridge. Such an exemplary attempt may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 8,920,379 to Lee. Unfortunately, these needle cartridges rely on attempting to hermetically seal the components of the needle cartridge from the main body of the microneedling device or “pen.” But even the implementation of seals that are intended to be airtight, the “sealed” cartridges still cannot thoroughly prevent contaminants flowing back into the main body of the apparatus. For example, with the Lee design in the '379 patent, the rubber material employed to provide seals between the needle unit and the reciprocating shaft that moves the needle unit in and out during use of the apparatus still allows the leaking of some fluids from the cartridge to the main body of the apparatus. Such leaking is caused by the quick movement of the components the sealing member is intended to hermetically grasp during use of the apparatus, and thus maintaining an airtight seal on such quickly moving components has proven to be troublesome, if not impossible. Accordingly, even with these new designs attempting to create airtight seals between the cartridge and the main body of the pen device, it has proven difficult for such conventional liquid injection devices to completely block liquid contaminants from flowing back into the main body of the apparatus, which then contaminate the new needle cartridge employed for the next person.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a disposable needle cartridge that can more effectively block liquid contaminants from flowing back through the cartridge and contaminating the main body of the apparatus, but which does not suffer from the deficiencies of the prior art mentioned above. The present disclosure provides such solutions.